Welcome to our blog!
Here we will be writing about our project, and adventures along the way.
We arrived in Cape Town in the morning after a long flight, with a layover in Istanbul in the middle of the night. Luckily our bags were easy to find. We invested in a couple of electronic SIM cards for our phones so that we would be able to hear from each other over the next month. The first problem quickly came with us not being able to use the Amex card we had intended to pay for the rental car with, so we had to improvise and send some money around. On our way into the center of Cape Town, we experienced how much difference left-hand traffic can make, which took quite a while to get used to. It was some kind of trial by fire when we were thrown into the center to find our accommodation. We arrived a bit too early to get in straight away, so we headed down to the V&A Waterfront pier, which turned out to be a place where we would spend quite a bit of time. There were restaurants and shops in abundance. The prices are generally quite different from those here at home in Sweden. The currency used is called Rand (ZAR), and one rand corresponds to approximately SEK 0.6. If the prices had been written in SEK, it would have been quite cheap already, but now it was even cheaper. Once at the accommodation, we quickly discovered that it was very cold indoors, but also found a couple of heating lamps that had to be left on regularly at high speed.
One of the bigger excursions we did here in the beginning was a wine tour around Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. It was a really nice day, with very exciting environments and good wines. We also took the opportunity to taste ostrich, kudu and springbok meat, which was new to all of us. There were different opinions about whether it was good. In Cape Town there was a lot to do, i.a. MOCAA (Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art). This museum was located in a converted silo, which provided a very exciting meeting of architecture and contemporary art. In addition to “regular” art, they had many video exhibitions, which was an exciting medium to take part in. One of the bigger adventures at the beginning of the trip was our trip to the Cape of Good Hope. This well-known place is about an hour (by car) south of Cape Town, and was well worth the trip. It is an incredible place with striking nature. It is easy to understand that this was believed to be the end of the world once upon a time. When you stood at the top of the lighthouse, as high up as you could get, in the far southwest of the entire continent of Africa, it was hard not to be speechless from it all. We were also warned about baboons many times, but actually saw none there and then. Maybe it was best that way.
Finally (in Cape Town) we visited a print shop and had the Opera logo printed on the t-shirts we would wear as “work clothes” in the later stages of the trip. The next stop on the trip was the small town of George. A couple of hours by car led us to the beautiful place. Just there, it was apparently common for conferences and golf trips among international guests. We stayed one night in a small so-called Guest House, and didn’t really get to see much of that particular city, which was almost a bit nice after a few intense days in Cape Town. Our adventure continued via the Garden Route to Port Elizabeth. This stretch was said to be one of the finest in the world, and that may well be true. Mountains alternated with sea in a beautiful interplay, which made the many hours in the car a little more enjoyable.
//CESA24
